Had a conversation today with the CFO of a software company (focusing on the healthcare industry). We discussed his firm’s products/service offerings. They sounded pretty cool. But, there was a But. Their offerings are “nice and helpful” but not “absolutely necessary”. Why is this?
1. Lack of clarity on the decision maker(s) and their process. Each healthcare system buys differently – could be the CFO, CTO, various departments, etc. There’s no consistent path-towards-closing-the-deals.
2. This service/product combination most definitely will add value, but not enough value to push the buyers to a ‘yes’.
I once had an engineering client with a similar predicament. This firm developed an intriguing, smart technology that would help municipalities to maximize their engineering decisions relating to an essential utility.
In both cases, the solution would indeed save the client time and money. Yet, what was stopping clients from making the purchase? In the engineering firm’s situation, they had crafted a fairly straightforward explanation for how their solution worked (features), and the money it could potential save (benefits/value proposition). They also had testimonials from existing large municipalities in the US and abroad (proof). It was baffling that it was still a tough sell to get the clients to sign on the dotted line. There was some limited competition in the same market space, but there seemed to be enough potential market share to go around.
Turns out, this solution was not ‘required’ by the municipalities. No level of marketing/selling seemed to convince people to want it enough. Yes, it was ‘nice’. Yes, it would be helpful and potentially save money. What were their objections? Sometimes it was the usual suspects:
-Not enough understanding of the value (hard for laypeople to understand, grasp, and embrace)
-Too much time investment on their part would be required
-It was different than status quo, and they weren’t willing to take the risk to change the way they had been solving the issue for years and years
So what does a firm do when they have something good to sell, and they get validation from their prospects that while it is somewhat desirable, it is not necessary? I’d welcome your comments and ideas, as it’s not an easy problem to solve. See Part II for my thoughts.